Database Users

[Q] Sd issues. a500 not recognizing sd card

Hi all. I have a stock a500 with 3.1. Not rooted. I put in the 16gb SD card with files in it and I don't get any indication of the card in the bottom right corner. My phone however will recognize it and the files that are on it. Any suggestions? Ty for any replies

"Try unplugging it, and plugging it in again" - Mistabishi 'Printer Jam'.
What FS is the card formatted to? Have you tried any other card that is known to work? Also, try formatting the SD as FAT32 again from the phone.

I am having the SAME issue on my acer. It wont recognize my 16gb sandisk card. I tried formatting as described and I tried another card. Both are showing up in my HTC inspire but nothing on the acer. Whats the deal? When I go to storage in settings- the external SD total space is recognized but it is not allowing me to access it for storage using app2sd?

this SD card worked just fine on the transformer I took it out of.

da9b16 said:
I am having the SAME issue on my acer. It wont recognize my 16gb sandisk card. I tried formatting as described and I tried another card. Both are showing up in my HTC inspire but nothing on the acer. Whats the deal? When I go to storage in settings- the external SD total space is recognized but it is not allowing me to access it for storage using app2sd?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you even able to see the SD card? check /mnt/sd-external to see if it shows up. If it's there, create a directory, then delete it. Also, check the ".android-secure" hidden directory that should be on the SD card after using app2sd. If the permissions are not set correctly, you won't be able to use app2sd with it (reason for create/delete of the directory). Sidenote, I've seen quite a few apps named app2sd, some of them listed are showing up on my end as non-working with the A500 where others listed should work fine.
Forcefedfun said:
this SD card worked just fine on the transformer I took it out of.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Still, that does not give me anything to go on. Did you format the card again? Is the card formatted in FAT32? Have you tried formatting the card from your computer using a card reader? I've had SD cards not show up before, reformatting them correctly solved the issue each time. If you don't know what filesystem the card is formatted with, grab a LiveCD with gparted on it (almost any gnome distribution) and I can help you from there. I haven't used Windows since XP SP2 was first released (FCKGW-... if you know what I mean) and I have refused to touch anything Apple since the IIe. Hence the signature.

formatting
Not sure what format they are in. I used a thunderbolt to for mate and a fsscinate and neither were visible. I'll go check what you recommended above though.

What are you guys talking about?
To the OP: You won't have any indication at the bottom. That feature doesn't exist on our devices (but some custom roms based on xoom and ?ASUS? have it). Just check the System screen to see if it finds your sd or simply make a photo from your camera (just set it to save the pictures to your SD). Or use a program and check /mnt/external-sd
To da9b16: a2sd won't work on this device (besides it has enough internal memory).
You'll only be able to access SD directly from your internal memory if you root the device and use a program that creates a symlink from /mnt/external-sd to /sdcard (USB Mount All does this but it's not free) or if you simply navigate to /mnt/external-sd with a file explorer.
I hope that this clears some confusion.

bpivk said:
What are you guys talking about?
To da9b16: a2sd won't work on this device (besides it has enough internal memory).
You'll only be able to access SD directly from your internal memory if you root the device and use a program that creates a symlink from /mnt/external-sd to /sdcard (USB Mount All does this but it's not free) or if you simply navigate to /mnt/external-sd with a file explorer.
I hope that this clears some confusion.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just needed to know what the MNT portion of that statement which tells me dir. Thanks! Done and done!

almost same problem
da9b16 said:
I just needed to know what the MNT portion of that statement which tells me dir. Thanks! Done and done!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey i have a similar problem , when i put my SD card does recognize but the apps like photo gallery or play music wont read any file from my SD card what can i do

CWM wont show SD card contents...

So I rooted this stupid tablet and put the custom acer recovery app or whatever it is on it. Installed the proper CWM, and when I boot into recovery and try into install zip from SD card all it shows is "Lost.dir". Nothing else. What am I doing wrong?? The ROM/Kernel I want are on the root of my sd card, why isn't it showing up?

Because the tablet isn't stupid it knows exactly where the files should go but you didn't put them there? You just put your files into a wrong directory namely your internal storage.
/sdcard/ = internal storage which isn't used by CWM
/mnt/external_sd/ = SD card which is accessed by CWM
EDIT:
And in case you're looking for USB... The tablet mounts it under /mnt/usb_storage

bpivk said:
Because the tablet isn't stupid it knows exactly where the files should go but you didn't put them there? You just put your files into a wrong directory namely your internal storage.
/sdcard/ = internal storage which isn't used by CWM
/mnt/external_sd/ = SD card which is accessed by CWM
EDIT:
And in case you're looking for USB... The tablet mounts it under /mnt/usb_storage
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Files can also be put on a USB flash drive and CWM will see them there also
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

Some SD cards can not be seen bybrecovery.try formatting your card on another android device or a format utility from your PC.use fat file system.if still no luck try a fifteenth SD card
Goodluck

FAT, FAT32, external sd, usb drive, no matter where I put it, or what i do doesn't show it.
I give up.

joe3681 said:
FAT, FAT32, external sd, usb drive, no matter where I put it, or what i do doesn't show it.
I give up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Take your time and have patience. I know the feeling. How are you transferring the data to the micro SD card? Can you use a file manager app to access the card, /mnt/external_sd?
Sent from my HoneyVillain 1.1 HC3.2 using Tapatalk

Again over and over ..try another SD card maybe two this is a very common issue.very common
Try diffrent SD cards if you have not

Or use a USB drive and flash from there. I do it all the time if I'm to lazy to copy the files to my SD card.

I am also stumped with the the acer reading the micro sd card. I am able to see it using root explorer. However, I cant see it when it is connected to my computer. I had to place my sd card in my galaxy tab in order to transfer files to it, and then place it in the iconia. That appeared to be the only way to put the rom on the root of my sd card. I want to save my stock back up to my computer in case I damage my sd card, but there seems to be no way to do it with out removing the card and placing it in another device. Am I missing something? Dont want to start another thread, so I'm asking here because it looks like it's been seen by other users.

dxwilliams40 said:
I am also stumped with the the acer reading the micro sd card. I am able to see it using root explorer. However, I cant see it when it is connected to my computer. I had to place my sd card in my galaxy tab in order to transfer files to it, and then place it in the iconia. That appeared to be the only way to put the rom on the root of my sd card. I want to save my stock back up to my computer in case I damage my sd card, but there seems to be no way to do it with out removing the card and placing it in another device. Am I missing something? Dont want to start another thread, so I'm asking here because it looks like it's been seen by other users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI ( just in case ) !!!
When fully booted... SD CARD is the internal storage... and the physical card is shown as EXTERNAL SD CARD !
When at CWM recovery... SD CARD is the real physical card !

again KNOWN ISSUE
dxwilliams40 said:
I am also stumped with the the acer reading the micro sd card. I am able to see it using root explorer. However, I cant see it when it is connected to my computer. I had to place my sd card in my galaxy tab in order to transfer files to it, and then place it in the iconia. That appeared to be the only way to put the rom on the root of my sd card. I want to save my stock back up to my computer in case I damage my sd card, but there seems to be no way to do it with out removing the card and placing it in another device. Am I missing something? Dont want to start another thread, so I'm asking here because it looks like it's been seen by other users.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This Is a flaw.well if its actually a flow its a honeycomb issue.nothing you can do to fix this.unless I have missed it recently
its talked about alot on this forum.

No problem here but I am running the rom listed below. I see it on the tab and when I plug it in the computer. Everything works.
Sent from my Acer Iconia A500 running HoneyVillain 1.1 HC 3.2 for A501, OC'd 1.5GHz

64Gb MicroSD card.

I've received an installed my new SansDisk 64Gb MicroSD card.
Transferred some files into it in my desktop and had go with it in the 7.7.
It does not seem to be recognizing the card...Does not even appear as "External Storage" in "My Files"
For those of you who reported success using 64Gb cards, what's the file system in your card?...exFAT?
Thanks!
XK

Reformatted it as ntfs and install ntfsSd (thanks oyaxai for the great app!). You need root anyway.
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium

I believe mine is formatted fat32. Can you try formatting it in the device?

九千. said:
Reformatted it as ntfs and install ntfsSd (thanks oyaxai for the great app!). You need root anyway.
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Installed!...and WORKING !
Sweet, sweet, sweet...I can now see MKVs over 4GBs...
Thank you so much!
XK
(EDIT: Victory claimed too soon, I am afraid... ntfsSd did mount the MicroSD successfully, initially...but them I unmounted and removed the card and copied all the content from my previous card into it, in Windows.
Now,ntfsSd won't mount the card, anymore.
Meanwhile, I've managed to get the 7.7 to recognize the card in exFAt, and reformatted it in the 7.7.
I think I'll leave NTFS alone for a while now...
XK

I loaded a sandisk 64GB. Not sure what file system it was but it was detected as an external disk but not able to mount. Even USB Mass Storage Watcher app, which I love, could not mount it. This really annoyed me since I had spent a good 2 or so hours transferring files onto it via my laptop.
So I formatted it via the tab's settings, which I presume converted it to FAT. I have no problems now, but i also don't use mkvs that exceed the 4GB. I would be interested to hear other people's experiences with NTFS and if they are experiencing the same problems as Khan

Format as ntsf
How do you format it as ntsf? I'm not able to do this. The device automatically formats the SD as fat32.

XDAKhan said:
(EDIT: Victory claimed too soon, I am afraid... ntfsSd did mount the MicroSD successfully, initially...but them I unmounted and removed the card and copied all the content from my previous card into it, in Windows.
Now,ntfsSd won't mount the card, anymore.
Meanwhile, I've managed to get the 7.7 to recognize the card in exFAt, and reformatted it in the 7.7.
I think I'll leave NTFS alone for a while now...
XK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is an known issue: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=22617892&postcount=13
- Once unmounted, even after you mount again manually,
Android OS don't detect the sdcard.
You can access it with file managers or other apps,
but stock camera and settings app don't.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That means you may not want to unmount ever after. I know that is not the perfect solution you are looking for.
Also, for your information, 7.7 does not mount exFat (I might be wrong, inform me if you could). The first time you insert an exFat formatted sdcard, it would prompt for reformatting. Your card will be formatted into FAT32.

Yes, it is not very practical, that way...I'll forget NTFS until someone comes up with a more polished solution...now that it has been shown that HC can, indeed, work with NTFS it will be only a matter of time before a more comprehensive solution appears, be it for HC or ICS...I'll wait.
As for the remaining solution, this is my full story:
1. The card is a Sandisk MicroSDXC I Ultra (class 6). It is natively formatted in exFAT.
2. I took it right out of the box, put in the included adapter, inserted it in USB in my desktop, running Windows 7 and transferred some files.
3. Put it in the 7.7 and nothing happened. It was not detected by the system, no incompatibility messages, nothing.
4. I removed it from the 7.7 and tried to format it in the desktop PC. The only otpions Windows would offer were NTFS or exFAT.
5. I formatted it in NTFS and tried to use the card with the "Drive Mount" app in the 7.7. The app would detect and "force mount" the card but the 7.7 file manager wouldn't report it as existing (NOTE: I kept "Drive Mount" installed, as it can still be useful in the future, when using the USB feature to deal with my photo CF cards...This is the only area remaining for me to fully break-in my 7.7, as I am still waiting for the OTG USB reader to arrive).
6. Making good use of your pointer, I installed the "ntfsSd" app, with initial success, as reported. Then the problem in reference manifested itself.
7. I then reformatted the card back in the desktop PC, selecting exFAT as the file system but refrained from adding any content.
8. The 7.7 now recognized the card, displayed the system incompatibility message and I was able to evoke the format option from within HC. The tab reformatted the card in FAT32 and I am now using it with no further problems.
9. So, the thing is (...if I understood it correctly...): When getting a new 64Gb card insert it directly into the 7.7, without using it anywhere else first. It can recognized a non-compatible file system but it won't recognize the very same file system if there's already any content on the card.
XK

My S4 (GT-19505) cannot read SD cards (SD card blank)

Hi XDA Family.
I recently flashed Omega Rom on my Galaxy S4 and everything went well. The next day I played my music from my SD card then there was an error "cant play this music file or something like this" after that my S4 was displaying that my SD card is blank or has unsupported files. The phone recommended that I need to format it using the phone. I formatted it like my phone said but it did nothing. Phone still displaying that SD card is blank or has unsupported files.
The next day bought a new SD card (8gb Scandisk) and the phone read it no problem. I transferred all my music to my new SD card and after playing my music the error appeared again and now both SD cards are showing that the SD cards are blank or has unsupported files.
Re flashed stock rom and stock kernel but still has the same errors on my SD card
Borrowed a memory card reader from a friend and formatted the SD card using my PC formatted it with all know file system. FAT32, exfat and NTFS but everything is not working.
Lastly I tried my SD cards with another Galaxy s4 and they worked without problems, formatted it using the phones formatting capability inserted it on my S4 but still has the same errors.
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated guys.
Thanks in advance.

Any help would be greatly appriciated.

I have The same problem.
Pls help
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda premium

did you try any rescan sdcard application from playstore?

samersh72 said:
did you try any rescan sdcard application from playstore?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi! Thanks for replying, I was beginning to lose hope that anybody would reply. Tried your suggestion. Downloaded 3 scanning SD card apps on Playstore but none of them worked. Both of my SD card still shows up as blank in my S4.
This only happened after i flashed a ROM, anything I still need to do to go back to stock? Already flashed an official softwas and kernel.

carlo06 said:
Hi! Thanks for replying, I was beginning to lose hope that anybody would reply. Tried your suggestion. Downloaded 3 scanning SD card apps on Playstore but none of them worked. Both of my SD card still shows up as blank in my S4.
This only happened after i flashed a ROM, anything I still need to do to go back to stock? Already flashed an official softwas and kernel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
take a look here

samersh72 said:
take a look here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Good Morning!
Tried that last night still the same problem. Tried the chkdsk on CMD still the same problem. I can buy another SD card but I am just afraid that maybe a week or two the sd card will mulfunction again and I cant forget the fact that my PC and other S4 can read my SD cards.

Two possible reasons. Sandisk SD cards supposedly fail easily but yours is 8gb so it should be ok.
Next reason is Omega Rom bug, I personally don't have this issue but I have a similar one. My Sdcard does not mount as r/w automatically.

lambstone said:
Two possible reasons. Sandisk SD cards supposedly fail easily but yours is 8gb so it should be ok.
Next reason is Omega Rom bug, I personally don't have this issue but I have a similar one. My Sdcard does not mount as r/w automatically.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply lamstone, I have read somewhere that disabling the automount helps. Can you help me on how to disable automount? and can I do it if I am on stock firmware?
Thanks

Just use the card reader and adapter and attach it to your computer and format the card using exFAT file system. Then use it in phone. AFAIK the current custom recoveries already support exFAT. So you should be fine for anything. I had similar issue with my 32GB Sandisk Ultra card when I formated it using phone. No issues since I formated it as exFAT on PC.

Funkym0nkey said:
Just use the card reader and adapter and attach it to your computer and format the card using exFAT file system. Then use it in phone. AFAIK the current custom recoveries already support exFAT. So you should be fine for anything. I had similar issue with my 32GB Sandisk Ultra card when I formated it using phone. No issues since I formated it as exFAT on PC.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi thanks for the reply.
Tried Fat32, Exfat and ntfs and all of the still has the same error. Actually bought a new 16gb sd card earlier I popped it in my s4 and still has the same problem.
This started happening when I flashed Omega rom. Is there anyhow I can check if I have a stock everything? My kernel, recovery and firmware?
thanks for the patience.

BUMP!!!
Anybody who can help me??
Another update is that I installed CWM recovery Philz Edition and tried hooking it up on the UBS cable and mount usb storage. My computer can now see my sd card inserted on my phone. Tried reformat while my phone is on CWM and connected thru USB cable and formatting goes thru but phone still says SD Card is blank or has unsupported files.
One thing that is strange though is that when I try to copy things to my SD card while my phone is attached to the USB cable my PC freezes like it cant copy any files to my SD card.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Same problem
carlo06 said:
BUMP!!!
Anybody who can help me??
Another update is that I installed CWM recovery Philz Edition and tried hooking it up on the UBS cable and mount usb storage. My computer can now see my sd card inserted on my phone. Tried reformat while my phone is on CWM and connected thru USB cable and formatting goes thru but phone still says SD Card is blank or has unsupported files.
One thing that is strange though is that when I try to copy things to my SD card while my phone is attached to the USB cable my PC freezes like it cant copy any files to my SD card.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the same problem. I bought an 16GB class 10 Kingston SD Card and inserted in my phone . Nothing. THen I disabled Developer options and it appeared. Then I though I will reformat it using directly the phone. Ok. Tried to use it bam "unexpectedly removed " and nothing. Then I tried another SD Card and the same happend first good then removed and so the third one.
Any updates on this thread ? Did you manage to make it work ?

This phone is pissing me off. I am having same problems with stock music player and Goohle Play Music app giving errors on any tracks in my Sandisc 32 gb class 6 micro SD. I have started to wonder if it is related to me using the Samsung Smart dock with a 500 gb external HDD to watch movies on HDTV. It mounts the drive and works great but following day I was try to play music that worked day before and now I get unsupported file type error and other error.
I tried avg to check for a virus(which is unlikely imo) and it shows no virus. I just tried this SD on another android device (Nabi 2 tablet running 4.0.4 and all songs play PERFECT without error. This must be my At&t galaxy S4. Any ideas anyone? I really dont feel like reformatting the sd since it seems to work fine on tablet. Also: I already wiped both music player apps in settings and eventually uninstalled and reinstalled the apps (and another musiv player also) to see if it was cache related. This made no difference.
Edit* oops. After rereading OP... I think I posted this in wrong thread.lol. But my issue with S4 and SD card error with music playback is similar so Ill leave my post unless mod wants to remove it. FYI I fixed my issue(somewhat). Ths SD card is fine as I suspected. The phone has an issue having stock music app, play music and mx player. Either one of the apps was running in background or the system was running sound in background. Hope to not have problem repeat itself. I bet custom rom would fix this if AT&T hadnt locked phone with sneaky update.

You can try flash Rom Cook MH8.
I think your problem will resolve.
Thanks

i think you need to try this.. Get your SD card and try to put in another phone example Blackberry (im not sure if it will work on HTC, alcatel etc. except samsung).
then format using other phone. after formatting ffrom other phone. reinsert the sd card on your samsung unit. then check the storage and try reformatting again using your Samsung.

still nothing
Well. I still do not know how to fix this and I searched and tried almost everything. Only thing that I think might be wrong that somehow the "auto mount SD " does not work.
Because the card is there. The phone cannot see it . Other phones do fine. And in CWM even I can see that there is indeed an SD card but cannot acces the files.
So... I really do not know

i am also having this problem but nothing seems to help have tried alot of thing but yeah :/ sp i have given up on it ! it is a 32 gb sd card loved it.. now i almost got anxiety cus i have so little storage xD hehe well well might buy a new sd soon

My class 4 32gb sdcard too stoped working properly these days.Sometimes it gets unmounted randomly or it doesn't get detected or it shows blank sdcard.I don't know what cause that but the best I could have done is to backup my data and buy a sammy 32gb class10 micro sd.I heard that S4 has problems with sandisk ones.
Sent from my GT-I9500 using Tapatalk 4

UPDATE:
My SD Card problems has not been fixed until now!
I just flashed the leaked 4.3 firmware and I tried to insert an SD Card just to try it and BAM! it worked!!! I am now afraid of rooting my phone because maybe the SD Card will not be working again but as long as my SD Card is working I am good!
Anybody who has problems with their SD Card should try to flash this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2465713
hope this helps!

[Q] Problem writing to SD card

Has anyone else experienced problems writing files to external SD card just lately? All I know is that the SD card works fine If I use it on the computer with a card reader.
For instance if I copy 300mb of titaniumbackup files it will randomly stop in the process and tell me there is a problem writing the files. This also happens with other files. I can't seem to find anything in the logs either, but then I'm not exactly sure what to look for.
I've tried ES file explorer, the CM11 file explorer and FX file exporer. I've reformatted the SD card using CWM, put it in my card reader on my computer and was able to copy over 40gb of data flawlessly so the card doesn't seem to be corrupt.
I'm not really sure where to start with the troubleshooting, as I said before I'm not sure what I'm looking for in the log files regarding failed file transfers.

re: sdcard issue
Swizzy88 said:
Has anyone else experienced problems writing files to external SD card just lately? All I know is that the SD card works fine If I use it on the computer with a card reader.
For instance if I copy 300mb of titaniumbackup files it will randomly stop in the process and tell me there is a problem writing the files. This also happens with other files. I can't seem to find anything in the logs either, but then I'm not exactly sure what to look for.
I've tried ES file explorer, the CM11 file explorer and FX file exporer. I've reformatted the SD card using CWM, put it in my card reader on my computer and was able to copy over 40gb of data flawlessly so the card doesn't seem to be corrupt.
I'm not really sure where to start with the troubleshooting, as I said before I'm not sure what I'm looking for in the log files regarding failed file transfers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the sdcard is not already formatted with fat32 your best bet is to format it
fat32 and there is an excellent chance that you will be able to use it in your
phone and computer without any further issues.
Here is a direct download link for the windows fat32 formatter:
http://dlp.cloudsvr50.com/td1/81/fat32-format/341/579/TJejpbc5?kw=CL6g3LjlnrsCFUJrfgodDX8AbA
Good luck!

Misterjunky said:
If the sdcard is not already formatted with fat32 your best bet is to format it
fat32 and there is an excellent chance that you will be able to use it in your
phone and computer without any further issues.
Here is a direct download link for the windows fat32 formatter:
http://dlp.cloudsvr50.com/td1/81/fat32-format/341/579/TJejpbc5?kw=CL6g3LjlnrsCFUJrfgodDX8AbA
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I switched to slimkat rom to try it out. It's also based on 4.4 and the same kernel as what I had before. I re-formatted the sd card to fat32 at the same time but everything seems to work now. I wonder what it was. Maybe just a kitkat bug with exfat that still needs to be sorted out